


Shake the Dust From Your Feet

by AuroraNova



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26903917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraNova/pseuds/AuroraNova
Summary: How do you tell the person you love that you’ve grown to loathe living on their planet? And how can you be happy when your partner is miserable?
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 35
Kudos: 157





	Shake the Dust From Your Feet

**Author's Note:**

> We so often show Julian as happy on Cardassia. I wanted to explore the opposite. Partly because there's nothing I love more than a fic which goes against the prevailing trends, and partly because the idea is so rich with potential for a mature, non-fairy-tale look at relationships.

Julian was thrilled to leave Cardassia. 

He’d tried to love it, he truly did. He went in with his usual high hopes and excitement for a new challenge, but it soon grew apparent that there could hardly be a planet more perfectly designed to make him miserable. 

First, he spent three-quarters of the year in the wide range between ‘uncomfortably warm’ and ‘dangerously hot.’ This alone might not have been an insurmountable problem. It would never be ideal, to be sure, and at the height of summer he had to be very careful indeed or risk heat-related illness, but he thought he could have adapted. 

Besides the climate, there were other challenges for a human on Cardassia. Half the common insect bites caused symptoms ranging from itchy rashes spreading over an entire limb to localized pain and slight fever. Julian spent four weeks in spring having to give himself antihistamines every six hours or have his eyes swell almost shut, courtesy of a particularly nasty pollen. The predominant Cardassian grains were close to indigestible and best avoided. The city water supply, once it was restored, came enhanced with bacteria which were extremely beneficial for Cardassians and threw Julian’s entire microbiome into chaos. 

Considering these myriad unpleasantries alone, it was no wonder the Federation Relief Corps got barely any volunteers for Cardassia and, aside from Julian, not one human willing to extend their term of service. Unfortunately, that was only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem lay with the people. 

Not all of them, no. Julian had met some genuinely likeable individuals on Cardassia, even two he considered friends. They were a distinct minority. 

It was that damned Cardassian superiority complex. Nothing was ever good enough, no matter how hard Julian tried. Most Cardassians, instead of recognizing that he was the product of a different planet and thus not naturally suited for their environment, simply decided he was weak when he couldn’t respond to an outdoor emergency at high noon in the middle of summer, rude when he politely declined to eat the dessert brought in to celebrate someone’s wedding (and which would sit in his stomach like a stone for the better part of two days), and, he suspected, an embarrassment to sentient species everywhere when he broke out in hives following an encounter with some moths he hadn’t known would fly at his face when surprised. Then there was the disdain for his inability to instantly grasp all the nuances of Cardassian social interactions. Julian wasn’t even that good at social interactions with his own species, and thought he ought to be forgiven some understandable ignorance. He was further looked down upon for being a male doctor, having a relationship with Garak which was too close for anyone’s comfort, and his stubborn insistence on treating orphans. 

Somewhat ironically, he was also suspected of being a Federation spy. Why else would he stay when other humans couldn’t wait to leave? (He did wonder if Section 31 might have shown up in hopes of manipulating him again, except he was living with Garak and they weren’t that stupid.) If not a spy, general opinion held he was at the least part of a broader Federation effort to weaken and/or assimilate Cardassia.

It had been a very long two years of constant, demoralizing xenophobia on top of the inhospitable environment and all the challenges one expected in a disaster zone. Julian only wanted to help. It wasn’t enough, and he’d been coming to accept that it would never be enough. 

Of course, the point was moot now. 

Amongst his relief was a horrible guilt. Garak steadfastly gazed out the window with one of his perfectly inscrutable expressions trailed on where Cardassia’s star could just be made out. 

Julian tried not to act happy. And he _was_ sorry for Garak, deeply so. He couldn’t begin to imagine how painful it was for Garak to lose his homeworld a second time. Julian didn’t much care if he never set foot on Earth again, aside from that being the easiest way to visit Miles, but leaving the Federation forever would pain him greatly, and that idea could only be a fraction of what Garak felt at the moment. 

Garak knew about the happiness anyway. He nearly always did. “You need not maintain the fiction that you’re sorry to leave Cardassia.”

“Since when do you have a problem with maintaining fictions?” asked Julian. 

Garak was apparently not looking for an argumentative diversion. “You hated living on Cardassia.”

Well, yes, but it seemed rude to agree outright. “Not everything about it.”

“No. Merely the overwhelming majority. You were, in fact, so unhappy that you were still unwilling to resign your Starfleet commission.”

Julian looked out the window in an attempt to hide his guilt. Garak was right. The Relief Corps had gotten him a dispensation to extend his service on Cardassia to two full years while remaining in Starfleet, essentially borrowing him. He’d hoped to renew the agreement for another year, though he hadn’t mentioned it to Garak, because how do you tell the person you love that you’ve grown to loathe living on their planet and can’t bear to make a step toward permanence?

“I don’t hold it against you,” continued Garak.

“You should,” replied Julian, who was very much holding it against himself. He shouldn’t have wondered why he couldn’t have fallen in love with someone who lived - almost anywhere else, really. 

Garak sighed. “Don’t think I was unaware of all the slights you didn’t wish to share with me. The fault is not yours, Julian. There was nothing more you could have done. I’m afraid Cardassia is not ready to abandon its devotion to xenophobia.”

“I’m not so arrogant I thought I could single-handedly usher in a new appreciation for other races.” He had hoped to change at least a few more minds, all the same. 

“If not failure, what am I supposed to be begrudging you?”

_The nights I laid awake wondering if you were worth living on Cardassia_ , Julian couldn’t bring himself to say. “Being glad to leave.”

“I don’t recall you taking offense that I was delighted to leave the station.”

“That was different.” Garak had never chosen DS9, for one thing. 

Garak raised one unconvinced eyeridge. “I hardly see why it’s unreasonable for you to be contentedly rid of Cardassia.”

“Because I love you, and you’re more devastated than I’ll ever understand.”

“Ah, but my culture does not value personal happiness the way yours does.”

True, but… “That’s not the point, Elim.”

“Do enlighten me as to the point, then. It seems to have escaped me.”

“I’m being horribly selfish thinking about myself right now, if you must know.” And those other nights as well, not that he’d suddenly decided to mention them. 

“No,” said Garak, “you are reacting sensibly to leaving a hostile situation.”

“But you…”

“I deserve no less than exile for helping the Federation Alliance kill my people.”

“You really believe that?” They’d never talked about it until the surviving Dukats forced the issue. When it came to holding grudges, Cardassians were second to none. 

“Does it matter?” Garak asked. 

“Of course it matters.” Julian had a feeling he’d be asking Ezri for some insights again. 

“I don’t think so.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Says the man who thinks he’s supposed to mourn leaving a planet full of people who hated him and an environment dangerous to his health.”

Julian, belatedly recognizing that it wasn’t the best time to pry into Garak’s feelings, conceded to the unsubtle conversational redirect. “I am sorry. Whatever else I also feel, you know I never wanted this for you.”

“I know,” said Garak. 

“And I’m sorry for hating Cardassia.” _Sorry for doubting that I could stay, even for you._

“There was little for you to like,” admitted Garak, which had to cost him. “I don’t blame you for keeping your commission. Please disabuse yourself of the notion that it reflects poorly on you. The shame is Cardassia’s, not yours, and you were entirely right to maintain a backup plan, as recent events have proven.”

“I wanted to be happy on Cardassia.”

“That was obvious.”

He really didn’t know what else he could have done. He could handle rubbing people the wrong way; he’d certainly had enough practice. Constantly being dismissed as lesser because of his species with precious few chances to prove himself, on the other hand, wore him down. Particularly when combined with the physically inhospitable planet. He still thought those challenges wouldn’t have been so awful if people hadn’t been so damn condescending about his physiology (and everything else). It wasn’t his fault humans hadn’t evolved to handle Cardassia.

Also, how many lives did a man have to save before he might earn a little respect? It baffled Julian that he could provide successful emergency treatment to someone who was headed for a fatal aneurysm, and that individual could be irked that she didn’t get a Cardassian doctor. He had happy patients, yes, but far more who tolerated him only for lack of other options. 

After a moment of gathering his courage, he ventured, “Elim?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to come with me wherever I’m assigned next? Because I’d like that, but I wouldn’t blame you if you’d rather find someplace warm and comfortable.”

“I would prefer to be with you. Now, what _is_ that look of guilt?”

“For a man who likes his privacy, you’re terrible at giving it to other people,” complained Julian. 

The remark didn’t convince Elim, though Julian hadn’t really expected it to. “If you didn’t want me inquiring, you should have done a better job controlling your facial expression.”

“We don’t all have your repertoire of masks, you know.”

“That’s because you haven’t devoted yourself to perfecting the art. If you are only asking me to join you out of a sense of obligation, I assure you -”

“No!” interrupted Julian. “No, that’s not it. I want you as my partner, I want to get shared quarters, everything. It just seems unfair that you’re…” he trailed off, a bit ashamed to say the words. 

“Yes?”

“You’re giving up a lot to be with me.”

“I see. You are engaged in emotional self-flagellation because you didn’t know if you could remain on Cardassia indefinitely, even to be with me, and I have no such misgivings in the reverse.”

Julian looked at his shoes. “Something like that.” Exactly that, actually. 

“Of course, the environment I’ll join you in won’t be half as hostile as the one in which you just spent two years, and my first choice for residence is no longer an option.”

“But there are places you’d be warmer.” 

“And bereft of your company. Regardless, ‘fairness’ is not a Cardassian concept. You know that. The situation is as it is. I accept it on those terms.”

Julian crashed into a firm hug. “I love you,” he said, then kissed Elim’s eyeridge. “I’m sorry.” He kissed the other. “I’ll do everything I can for you.”

So it was unfair. But life rarely worked out fairly, and Julian felt better knowing that Garak didn’t seem bothered by this inequality. He still wanted Julian, even after figuring out how torn Julian had been about remaining on Cardassia. Still loved him, even if he wasn’t one to say the words. It was there in the tightness of his grip, in the way he failed to protest Julian’s excessive sentiment, and in him not retreating to lick his wounds in private when hurt. 

“I never doubted you would,” said Garak, and they stood there holding each other for a long time. 


End file.
